Archibald Dalzel (1740–1812) was a Scottish colonial administrator and slave trader who served as

governor of the Gold Coast This is a list of colonial administrators in the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) from the start of English presence in 1621 until Ghana's independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. In addition to the Gold Coast Colony, the governor of the Gold Coast ...

from 1792 to 1802.

Life

Dalzel was born in

Kirkliston Kirkliston is a small town and parish to the west of Edinburgh, Scotland, historically within the county of West Lothian but now within the City of Edinburgh council limits. It lies on high ground immediately north of a northward loop of the Al ...

in Scotland and he trained to be a doctor in Edinburgh. After a spell in the navy he resolved to take a job in Africa as he saw it as a way to make money. He went to Africa as a surgeon in 1763 but started trading slaves to add to his salary.James A. Rawley, ‘Dalzel , Archibald (1740–1818)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 21 Dec 2014
/ref> He served four years as governor of Whydah (now

Ouidah Ouidah () or Whydah (; ''Ouidah'', ''Juida'', and ''Juda'' by the French; ''Ajudá'' by the Portuguese; and ''Fida'' by the Dutch) and known locally as Glexwe, formerly the chief port of the Kingdom of Whydah, is a city on the coast of the Repub ...

Benin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...

). He observed that the people at Whydah "pay a kind of veneration to a particular species of large snake, which is very gentle." Dalzal returned to England in 1770. Appointed by the Committee of Merchants that was in charge of the Gold Coast at the time, he served as governor in two periods: 31 March 1792 - 16 December 1798, and 28 April 1800 - 30 September 1802. Whilst he was there his daughter

Elizabeth Dickson Elizabeth Dickson or Elizabeth Dalzac ( – 30 April 1862) was a British woman who raised the British public profile of the Christian white slaves held in north Africa by the Barbary Slave Trade. Life Elizabeth Dalzac was born in Ghana in about ...

was born.J. R. Oldfield, ‘Dickson , Elizabeth (c.1793–1862)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 21 Dec 2014
/ref> In 1793 he published ''The history of Dahomy, an inland kingdom of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

; comp. from authentic memoirs; with an introduction and notes'' where he argued that the raiding of Dahomean villages for slaves was saving them from the greater evil of being human sacrifices. Son of William Dalziel (1705-1751) a carpenter from Kirkliston and Alice Linn. Brother of Andrew Dalzel (1742-1806), Professor of Greek, Honorary Librarian at Edinburgh University.

External links and references

* Grinker, Roy Richard & Steiner, Christopher B. (1997). ''Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation'', pp. xvii-xxxi.

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Blackwell Publishers Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...

. . * http://rulers.org/rulg1.html#ghana 1740 births 1811 deaths History of Ghana Governors of the Gold Coast (British colony) {{UK-gov-bio-stub